Project Civility continues second year on campus

Project Civility has reached the halfway mark of its two-year
endeavor in educating University students and faculty on the
importance of kindness and good manners toward others.

The initiative was a co-partnership between Senior Dean of Students
Mark Schuster and Kathleen Hull, former director of Byrne
Seminars.

Hull’s Byrne class, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” used Johns Hopkins
University Professor P.M. Forni’s book “Choosing Civility: The 25
Rules of Considerate Conduct” as a textbook for the class. The book
served as a model for the project’s mission, Schuster said.

“We originally wanted to have people think more respectfully and
act more respectfully,” he said. “We wanted to create a vocabulary
and goal around civility and try to get students to reframe the
definition, making it fresh to move it forward.”

In the wake of Tyler Clementi’s death last year, the University and
Project Civility gained attention from the media and support from
the campus community with themes focusing on bullying.

But “Words of Hate: Can They Ever Be Used,” a debate discussing if
hateful words used from a disenfranchised group are more civil,
jumpstarted this semester’s scheduled events last week at the
Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.

“By raising issues of civility in the public forum, Project
Civility enables students to reexamine assumptions offered to them
by the mainstream media and come together for a more productive
discussion,” said Storey Clayton, coach of the Rutgers University
Debate Union.

Future events include looking at athletes as a culture in
cooperation with Dena Seidel, director of digital storytelling at
the Writers House, where videos of athletes that have come out will
be shown, Schuster said.

Eric LeGrand, a School of Arts and Sciences senior who suffered a
spinal cord injury after a football game against Army last year,
will speak at the Busch Campus Center Multipurpose Room Oct. 5 as
part of “Civility Abilities I: We Believe in Eric LeGrand,” said
Sattik Deb, director of student services for Labor Studies and
Employment Relations.

LeGrand will address questions on overcoming his disabilities in
order to continue his aspirations in sports broadcasting and
contributing to the community, Schuster said.

“Do you Speak Caucasian?” on Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. at Brower Commons on
College Avenue campus will discuss surveys from culture groups on
campus, Schuster said.

A former NCAA football-captain-turned-lawyer, Brian Sims,
advocating for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
community will also be present, he said.

At this event, Schuster said athletic directors from the
University, Princeton University and Columbia University will sign
pledge to continue or become allies to LGBT athletes.

The spring semester will focus on the environment and community
service on global citizenship where Schuster said he received
interest from students to having an all-day conference in
March.

Schuster spoke at a student affairs conference over the summer on
civility at the University of Memphis where they have committed and
supported addressing civility for a year, modeling their own
program on Project Civility.

A series of fireside chats, debates and panel discussions followed
Johns Hopkins University Professor P.M. Forni’s kick-off
presentation last year, including a collaboration with The New York
Times on “What Does Civility Mean to Us?,” he said.

By the end of the last year, Project Civility became too
comprehensive in its logistics, Schuster said.

“We are continuing Project Civility this year,” he said. “But we
are scaling the breadth of it because undergraduate education is
giving little money and the Student Affairs office is supporting
it.”

Deb said he believed the initiative was successful from the
beginning because it appealed to people across the spectrum by
including a wide array of guest speeches and events.

Although the initiative has reached its halfway mark, he hopes its
ambitions and concepts will not be forgotten but transitioned and
sustained by students.

“I don’t think it is Project Civility’s final year,” Deb said. “I
think it will just take a new form.”

Some students, like Katelyn Hunt, a School of Arts and Sciences
junior, have supported the continuing efforts of instilling
civility on campus as something needed.

“I think Project Civility is a really innovative thing because it
brings to the table a platform for students to talk about things
that need to be talked about,” she said.